


so much left to do

by The_IPRE



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-22 11:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21301055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_IPRE/pseuds/The_IPRE
Summary: Fabian gets taken by the fey, Riz gets him back, and things fall apart.
Relationships: Riz Gukgak/Fabian Aramais Seacaster
Comments: 14
Kudos: 111





	1. a life in your shape

**Author's Note:**

> This one's gonna hurt, y'all, but it's gotta get better before it gets worse. Hope you enjoy! Title of the fic from "Can You Hear Me?", a song from King Falls AM (an excellent podcast) and title of the chapter is from Mitski's "Strawberry Blonde"

Riz was getting tired of faerie bullshit. 

He was sneaking through their halls, and the opalescence of the walls kept refracting color into his eyes anytime that he tried to peek around a corner. There were tapestries and gilt everywhere, because of  _ course _ Fabian had to get taken by the most ostentatious and gaudy creatures on this side of the planar system.

Footsteps approached and Riz ducked behind a brazier, freezing until the guard passed by his hiding place, humming a strange song as they moved out of sight. 

Slipping back out into the hall, still hugging the wall as best as he could, Riz let out a breath. He was still strained and stressed, had gotten about two hours of sleep during the weeks that his best friend had been missing, but that wasn’t important.

What was important was that he was going to rescue Fabian, bring him back home, and then they would keep going on adventures like they always did and everything would just be  _ fine _ .

Riz was pretty sure the only thing keeping him standing was the quadruple shot that he’d had earlier.

That wasn’t the point.

As he slunk along the wall, Riz heard a laugh, undercut by a groan. It landed, heavy as a punch in the gut, and he would recognize Fabian’s voice anywhere. He had spent far longer than he would like to consider thinking about all of Fabians little noises, his mannerisms and laughs, and he knew that was Fabian, and he knew he was in trouble so he burst through the door, Arcubus in hand- 

And there was Fabian, face flushed and hair mussed. Sitting in his lap was a faerie, wild blond hair and long pointed ears as her head was thrown back in a bright laugh. 

Riz felt sick. 

All of a sudden, he was back at Ostentaia Wallace’s house party, and Aelwyn was dazzling Fabian as Riz tried to do damage control and not think about how any of that was making him feel.

Except this time, Aelwyn was a faerie who wanted to do who-knew-what with Fabian, Riz felt invisible but in danger all the same, and Fabian was wearing that  _ grin _ of his. 

All things considered, it wasn’t actually all that different. 

Riz froze in the doorway as they both turned towards him, Fabian’s eyes glazed and the faerie already curling her lip, but he just tightened his grip on the Arcubus. “Hey, come on, F- come on, man, we’ve gotta go.”

“The Ball, what are you doing here?” Fabian’s face wore smears of lipstick in the same dark shade that the Not-Aelwyn had on her mouth, and his hair was falling out of its perfectly styled place, and he didn’t really seem aware of anything beyond the faerie on his lap even as he spoke. 

“I’m rescuing you, come on!” Riz hated the note of desperation that crept into his voice.

Fabian looked at the Not-Aelwyn on his lap, back at Riz, and then he laughed. “Oh, uh, no thanks, the Ball. I’m  _ good.” _

“No, this isn’t-“

The faerie cut him off, mouth a cruel slash of maroon. “Oh, you’re a fucking party pooper, aren’t you?” Her voice even  _ sounded _ like Aelwyn, creeping into Riz and making him want to shrink in on himself, because he didn’t have a place in the same world as her and Fabian, why would he think that he did, but he shook those feelings away. He wasn’t a freshman anymore, and  _ he _ wasn’t the one who had been taken by a faerie. He was there to save his friend, and he wasn’t going to shrink away just because the manifestation of his inadequacy had appeared. As Riz watched, guard up and calculating, the faerie unraveled herself from Fabians lap, legs swinging up and around and into the air. 

As she stood, limbs so long and body so thin, there was a nauseating moment where Riz was sure she had too many joints. 

Then she was walking forward, a roiling motion with her mane of hair catching the light and seeming to move on its own. Everything about her was a contradiction, sleek and smooth and wild, all sharp angles that moved like a wave, and Riz grit his teeth against the overwhelming feeling that this creature was not something that should exist.

He took a step back, spine against the doorframe, and in one fluid motion he lifted the Arcubus to point at her chest and he shot the Not-Aelwyn.

The bullets that he had brought were made of iron, and any doubt over their ability to wound fey vanished at the noise she let out. It was a terrifying screech, all sharp acrylic nails down diamond chalkboards, and Riz’s hands instinctively came up to cover his ears against the tearing sound.

On the other side of the room, Fabian rose, stumbling, to his feet. Out of the corner of his eye, Riz saw him patting at his hip and frowning when he realized there was no clever rapier hanging there.

“Fab- we have to  _ go _ !”

“Fabian Aramais Seacaster, you _will_ stay with me,” the faerie said, voice made of steel and pulling on the magic that was sunk into the very marrow of the world, and Riz was filled with a gut-wrenching dread.

The faerie had Fabian’s full name.

_ Fuck _ . 

Riz glanced over, watching as Fabian stiffened infinitesimally, that glazed look in his eyes doubling, and then there was a searing pain in his side as the faerie ripped through his jacket and vest and shirt with nails that were sharper than daggers. 

He was used to pain, should be used to it after how many fights he had been in, but the surprise still released all the air from his lungs in a ragged exhale. 

Blood was welling up as the faerie took another attack, catching the arm that Riz threw up just in time, and he barely managed to duck under another slash of her claws. As he pulled back, aiming again, he could see his blood flowing up along her arm, betraying gravity and starting to sink into her skin.

Riz took another shot, wincing as his movement pulled his wounds wider, and threw himself to the side. That terrible screech echoed around the chamber again, fluttering the gauzy banners against the walls, and Riz squeezed his eyes shut as he ducked behind a chair.

Adrenaline was pumping in his veins as he tightened his grip on the Arcubus. 

The clicking of heels on the floor, getting closer and sharpened in every sense of the word. “Where did you go, you little fucking freak?”

_ Inhale. Flex your fingers. Curl them back. Exhale. _

Riz spun out from around the chair, gun raised, and-

And found himself pointing the barrel directly at Fabian.

“Get down-”

“What the fuck?” Fabian was swaying, that glazed look still on his eyes, and Riz felt a growl forming somewhere in his throat because he couldn’t do this, he didn’t have time to deal with Fabian, mind controlled, protecting Aelwyn, and for a moment he saw himself accidentally shooting Fabin, and he forced that image out of his mind.

“Duck!” Riz raised his gun higher, angled it to the left, and pulled the trigger, not thinking about anything but who was on the other side of the barrel..

A cut off breath, a  _ thumb _ of a body hitting the floor, and Fabian stared at Riz with eyes wide. 

“What the  _ fuck _ , the Ball?”

“Fabian, we have to go, you’ve been here for weeks-”

“I have  _ not _ , it’s been just a few hours with Aelwyn, who you just  _ killed- _ oh my god.” Fabian turned to look back at the body of the faerie and gagged around his words.

The glamour had faded, and she didn’t look like Aelwyn anymore. A stretched and pale spindly body with wide eyes and needled teeth lay on the floor, strange shadows pooling around it as Fabian turned to look back at Riz. The flush from his face was almost comically gone as he blanched. “Again, I will say: what the  _ fuck _ ?”

Riz goraned, pressing his forehead into his palm. This was going to be  _ fine _ , they just needed to get out, and then things would be cleared up and it would all be  _ fine _ again. “We don’t have time for this now, come on-”

“No.” Riz blinked, the careless tone in Fabian’s voice cutting him deeper than he would admit. “Why should I go anywhere with you?” Fabian lifted his chin, hand going to where his rapier wasn’t hanging for a moment before he played it off with a dramatic pose. “Aelwyn told me to stay with her, and I will.”

“That isn’t Aelwyn!” Riz pointed at the body, all sharp lines and angles in a sickening array, and tried to keep himself from pleading. “Even if it was, you shouldn’t- you’re so much more than her, you deserve more than her, or some, I don’t know, shitty lookalike, please-”

“What do you even know about me?” There was that glassy look clouding Fabian’s eyes, and even though his voice was his own, the sound of the faerie’s voice around his name kept replaying in Riz’s head. 

Well, if that thing had wanted to keep Fabian’s name for herself, maybe Riz could give it back.

“You are  _ Fabian Aramais Seacaster _ , son of Bill Seacaster,” he said, continuing to force the words out even when Fabian scoffed. “You are the captain of the Bloodrush team, and captain of our party, even if nobody says it. You- you killed Johnny Spells, and you took his motorcycle! You killed Dane Blade after he took your eye, and you killed your father to keep his honor.” There was a lift to Fabian’s chin and a tension growing in his shoulders, and Riz changed tact.

“You pulled me from the corn butthole our first day of school, you torment Gilear and would fight for your honor and you care more than you ever tell anybody, and you don’t know how to process your dad’s death so you just keep pushing it off, and I really need you to come with me because-” Riz swallowed. He was swaying in place, blood dripping down his fingertips to the floor, and he kept looking into Fabian’s eyes even when he wanted to do anything else. 

His breath was catching around the knot in his throat, but he forced the words out anyway. “You’re our friend- you’re  _ my _ best friend, and we-” Riz let out a breath. “I need you.”

The haze in Fabian’s eyes grew thinner and thinner, Riz’s words scraping away at the fog, and the final  _ I need you _ shattered the cloudy film. Fabian’s shoulders slackened from their defensive position, eyes clear for the first time in weeks, and he let out a soft exhaled  _ oh _ . 

Riz was breathing heavily, tense, hoping against all hope that that would  _ work _ , and clenched his jaw to hold himself together. If that didn’t work, he would have to figure out another way to get Fabian to go with him, because there was no way that he was leaving alone, not after everything-

“Well, the Ball, that was-” Fabian paused, threw his shoulders back. “Ah, message received.”

Riz laughed, strain and tension finally releasing, and Fabian cracked a smile as well, still shaky but clearly trying to hide it, and Riz wasn’t going to bring it up. “Have I actually been here for weeks?”

“Yep. There’s a lot to catch you up on, but let’s get back to the real world first.” Riz walked over to the door, almost shaking with relief as he poked his head into the corridor. He let out a startled “hey!” as Fabian pushed past him into the hallway and started walking off to the right, confidence in every line of his movement.

Riz couldn’t hold back his smile, because Fabian was  _ back _ , bold and unstoppable as ever. “Wrong way.”

Fabian turned on a heel, face a little flushed, and gestured at Riz. “Of course, I knew that. Ah, lead the way, then.”

* * *

Riz had a hand on his holstered Arcubus as he jogged down the hall, tension making him less mindful than he probably should have been. He was still close to the walls, Fabian next to him, but they had been walking for too long and the endless maze of halls made his skin crawl, and he just wanted  _ out _ .

“Slow down, the Ball,” Fabian said, and when Riz lifted a finger to his lips he rolling his eyes and lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “You’re already hurting, and you didn’t take any time to bandage those wounds, and I don’t want you to die of blood loss and make me carry you out of here myself. Not that I couldn’t, because I certainly can, but-”

Riz froze in place for a moment, batting at Fabian until he was quiet, and his ears flicked back against his head when he heard footsteps coming from the hallway ahead of them. He looked around, hoping to see anything that might keep them from having to fight their way out of the faerie halls, pulse hammering in his throat, and  _ yeah _ , he was pretty sure that adrenaline was the only thing keeping him standing.

“In here,” Fabian said, pulling him towards a tiny alcove.

After a bit of shuffling and squeezing into a space that definitely wasn’t meant to hold two teenage boys, Riz let out a breath when he saw that it would be almost impossible for someone to see them from the hallway.

Once that problem was dealt with, he realized that there was a much more pressing one that he hadn’t considered.

Fabian was  _ right there _ , arm resting against the wall behind Riz for lack of space, and Riz would like to blame his flush on the tension and chase and all of that, but he knew that wasn’t the case.

Riz pressed back against the wall, but the places that their bodies touched seemed to burn like a brand. 

_ Get a hold of yourself _ , he thought, because,  _ really _ , now was not the time for a crisis. He was just trapped in an enclosed space with Fabian  _ fucking _ Seacaster, who had a glint in his eyes and a grin like he was  _ alive _ , and-

“I could take ‘em.” Riz blinked at Fabian’s words, exhaled into the air between them.

“What? I- oh, yeah, you probably could, but. Let’s try not to have to fight our way all the way out.” Riz was definitely not thinking about how being in a tight space with Fabian was something that he had imagined before, in one of those moments where he didn’t cut off the thoughts about Fabian quickly enough.

He hadn’t imagined that Fabian would have dark red lipstick from the Not-Aelwyn smeared across his mouth and down to his neck, though.

Riz swallowed and looked away, focusing just on the sound of footsteps coming down the hall and decidedly not thinking about how close Fabian’s body was pressed to his, because he had his mind out of the gutter and everything was  _ fine _ .

“When we get out of here, Adaine’s going to kill you for making out with her fake sister.” Riz’s voice was almost inaudible, all but lost under the sound of Fabian’s quiet laugh.

“What, are you jealous?” Fabian tried to scoff, eyebrow raised over a smirk, but there was a breathiness to his voice that Riz told himself was just the exertion. No other reason for that grin, or the way that his breath seemed to catch when Riz looked up at him.

Adrenaline was still pumping through Riz from the hiding and fighting and running, and he didn’t think he was breathing, torn between listening for the guards outside their alcove and focusing every cell on Fabian being  _ right there _ .

“You wish.” Riz’s voice was more the movement of lips and a release of breath than anything else, and he couldn’t stop the smile tugging at his face when Fabian rolled his eyes, expression exaggerated to get the point across as best he could without alerting the guards. Riz flicked Fabian’s hip, trying to take away from the heavy atmosphere, because he  _ really _ couldn’t do any of that right now, but Fabian stiffened under his touch.

He smiled a moment later, playing it off, and that was fine. This was fine.

The footsteps stopped outside, and then there was talking, some inane bullshit about the latest glamour or how some lord had managed to streamline the changeling process, and Riz dropped his face against Fabian’s chest to muffle the groan that he felt bubbling up.

These faeries had it out specifically for him, he was sure of it.

Fabian was shaking, and when Riz looked up, worried for a moment that something had gone wrong, he saw that Fabian was holding back laughter, and then he had to press his lips together to hold back laughter too, because this was fucking  _ ridiculous _ .

He was trapped in a tight space with Fabian, his best friend, who was looking better than any one person had a right to be, and there were guards talking, less than five feet from them, about how Gr’gg’ry had gotten sick from eating kale yet again.

They didn’t teach about this kind of shit at Augefort’s.

Holding his breath to keep from laughing and ruining this whole operation, Riz’s entire body was shaking, and he was decidedly not making eye contact with Fabian because he knew that would break his final thread of self control, and it was ridiculous that they were laughing, feet away from people who would – and maybe even could – kill them, but it was just…

After weeks of Fabian being missing, stress and research and pushing to the breaking point, it was  _ so good _ to have him back.

Shuddering breaths still making him rock forward into Fabian, Riz looked up, biting back his grin, and felt Fabian’s gaze hit him like a sack of bricks.

Fabian’s cheeks were dark and his lips were slightly parted as a laugh froze in his mouth, and his face was much closer than Riz had been expecting as he bowed his head down, and something seized in Riz’s chest, breath stuck as the voices outside their alcove finally kept moving.

Still smiling, Riz felt his adrenaline sharpen, focusing directly on Fabian, and maybe if he had gotten more sleep he would have been thinking more clearly. Maybe he would have just waited for the guards to pass and then he would have crept out, and  _ maybe _ he would have at most grabbed Fabian’s hand to pull him along, but at this point he was running on some strange autopilot that had taken over from a deep section of his brain.

“You look like a fucking mess,” Riz breathed, grinning and just a little bit awestruck, so aware of what he was doing but barely able to control it. He lifted a hand in the tight space, letting it hover just above Fabian’s skin, almost touching one of those smears of lipstick.

Fabian was stock still and Riz didn’t even know if he was breathing, prepared to pull his hand away, but then Fabian’s hand came and settled, tentatively, on his hip. “I'm wounded,” he murmured, still trying to hold onto that control, that voice of his where he was  _ obviously  _ the one who had it together, but the choking noise he made when Riz finally,  _ finally _ let his hand rest against skin said otherwise.

Fabian leaned his head down, just a fraction, and Riz lifted up, onto his toes and hand tightening its grip as he stretched to meet Fabian’s lips.

It wasn’t technically a good kiss.

Riz was straining, and he was going to have a crick in his neck if he kept it at that angle for much longer, and how far Fabian had to bend down couldn’t possibly be that comfortable, but none of that mattered.

Riz pressed his lips against Fabian’s, eyes tightly closed, every muscle tense because what was he even  _ doing _ , but then.

Fabian was kissing him back.

Fabian was pulling him closer, exhaling a shaky breath that could have been a laugh or a sigh or a million other things, and they were  _ kissing _ , pressed together in a tiny alcove in a hostile faerie realm.

It was a perfect kiss.

Riz didn’t know how long it was before he pulled back, grinning, and smoothed Fabian’s shirt where he had balled his hands into it. He knew he probably looked like an idiot, beaming and flushed, but that didn’t matter. “I think the guards are gone.”

Fabian looked like even more of a mess, lips quirked up in a smile. “Interesting point, but, consider this: what if we stayed here and kissed.”

Riz laughed, burying his face in Fabian’s chest so that he didn’t make noise and get them found after all of that, and there was something delighted and dazzling and  _ alive _ bubbling in his chest. 

Fabian wanted to keep kissing him. 

“We can kiss as much as we want when we get out of here,” Riz whispered, before wincing because wasn’t  _ that _ presumptuous. “I mean, if you want to.”

“Uh,  _ yeah _ ,” Fabian said, leaning down to kiss Riz again, lips landing on his cheek. “Let’s get out of here.”

Riz wasn’t even trying to bite back his grin as he grabbed Fabian’s hand and pulled him out of the alcove, slinking back into the hallway. Fabian tightened his grip on Riz, and  _ maybe _ holding hands wasn’t practical when trying to perform a stealthy escape, but he didn’t want to let go and neither did Fabian. 

As they crept down the corridor, distracted by the contact of skin against skin, Riz didn’t really realize that this hadn’t been the hallway that they were in before, or that it wasn’t even one he had walked through when first trying to find Fabian.

Later, Riz would wish that he had been paying more attention, that he had put aside the bubbling laughter in his chest, that he had stayed focused and thinking about the mission and making sure that they followed the right path and just got out of there. He would wish that he had been more careful about stealthing, more perceptive of the tiles on the floor that seemed to be drawing them forward, but wishes couldn’t change any of that.

Instead, the moment before he turned the corner, he looked up at Fabian, sharp teeth bared in a smile he couldn’t imagine trying to smother, and squeezed his hand just because he  _ could _ .

Then they turned the corner, and a creeping voice froze the very marrow of his bones.

“What do we have here?”


	2. i look over it and i ache

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caught between a rock and a hard place, Fabian makes a choice, Riz deals with the consequences, and there's only so much that can be done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Mitski's "Strawberry Blond"

The thin voice seemed to echo in the space, draping around Riz’s shoulders like a spiderweb as he tore his gaze from Fabian’s to the faerie in front of them.

Instead of walking into just another hallway, they found themselves in a massive receiving hall, with windows higher than Riz was able to look and neon shining colors flitting through the air. Scarves hung against the walls, refracting light like dragonfly wings, and it all came, swirling, to a single grand chair in the center of the room.

A single throne with a single faerie perched atop it shouldn’t have been as terrifying as it was, but Riz’s knees locked and every muscle filled with dread.

All of this, the rescue mission and the hiding and the fighting and the weeks spent stressing and researching and drinking as much coffee as it took to keep him awake, and he had just walked right into a trap, and he could have  _ screamed _ .

The faerie sat there, smug, watching carelessly as Riz’s eyes flickered, taking in the space but always coming back to the creature on the throne. Its muscles were made up of all sorts of brilliant poisonous plants, a rainbow of danger writhing where skin should have stretched, and its hand refracted the light when it lifted it in an unhurried motion. 

“I would not recommend that,” it said, gleaming teeth bared as Riz made a minute movement towards his Arcubus. “I am willing to bet that you do not have enough bullets for all of us, iron or not.”

As he spoke, faeries began to step out from the shimmering walls, all long limbs and garish colors and joints that bent in ways they should never have been able to. More and more oozed into the room until Riz was looking out across a sea of fey, grip white-knuckled around Fabian’s hand. He glanced backwards, and the door that they had come through was gone, because of  _ course _ it was. 

This was the kind of faerie bullshit that he should have been prepared for, but of  _ course _ he wasn’t.

Riz searched through his memory, frantically trying to remember everything Adaine had told him about faeries before he had entered their realms. 

_ If they have someone’s true name, they have power over that person _ . Riz glanced over at Fabian, neck long and chin raised and expression saying  _ go ahead, I dare you _ , and there was a sinking feeling in his gut that it was already too late for that bit of advice.

_ Iron hurts them, and salt holds them back _ . No matter that all of the bullets in the Arcubus were iron or how much salt he had sewn into the seams of his clothing, it wouldn’t do much against how many faeries stared at him, owlishly blinking in a gaudy swirl of movement and glinting gemstone light.

_ They like making bargains and deals, and are  _ very _ good at it _ . 

Riz saw Fabian’s hand balling into a fist, calculating eyes looking to see how many he could take out, and as his mouth started to open Riz stepped forward.

“What would it take to get us out of here? Unharmed?”

The faerie on the throne laughed, a scream of cicadas on a boiling summer day. “Fascinating question, goblin boy. What could  _ you _ have that would justify us letting you go?”

An echo of  _ what could you have, what could you _ possibly  _ have _ went up around the room, faeries murmuring with their heads cracked to the sides, and Riz shivered, voices trailing down his spine. 

“What, do you want our firstborns? Would a toe or two satisfy you?” Fabian stepped forward as well, hand still linked with Riz as they stood side by side before the horde.

Riz looked over, fear momentarily overcome by confusion. “A toe?”

“I don’t know, it seems like the kind of fairy tale bullshit-”

“That won’t quite do, Fabian Seacaster.” The faerie’s grin was the bared teeth of every dog who had ever attacked a child. “It would be so easy to keep you here, but if you really wanted to escape…” It clicked its tongue and puffed out its cheeks, putting on a show even as its eyes glittered with a plan. “How about...some memories?”

“What?!”

“Yes, ah, like the Ball said: excuse me?”

The faerie tapped together its garishly red fingers, and a laugh rippled across the crowd. “It really won’t be all that much. You are, quite honestly, getting a  _ deal _ . I will just take all of  _ your _ memories of  _ him _ ,” he said, pointing first at Fabian, then at Riz, “and you both get out of here unharmed.”

“Uh, fuck that,” Fabian said, speaking over the faerie’s last words.

Riz was rooted to the floor, mouth dry and horror yawning as his brain stalled, trying to find a way out of the whole shitty situation and coming up blank.

“How harsh, Mr. Seacaster,” the faerie said, and its glinting grin grew as Fabian stiffened at the sound of his own name. “We could keep you here forever, collecting all of your little friends as they came to try to rescue you. Really, that could be so much better for us, if you want to reject our generous offer-”

“Wait!” The faerie paused, sharp pleasure evident as Riz forced the words out of his dry throat. “Take something from me instead.”

“The Ball, we aren’t going to give anything up, because that’s  _ bullshit _ -”

From up on the throne the faerie watched, fingers intertwined and eyes glancing between Fabian’s face, where he held Riz’s hand, and then directly at Riz. “That won’t quite do. The Ball, was it? Your friend must pay his way out. He is  _ ours _ , in name and in everything else that matters, and if you want out,” it said, glittering insect shells of eyes swivelling to stare at Fabian. “You will have to pay the piper.”

Fabian threw his shoulders back. “Yeah, ah, as I said before, fuck that.”

There was a moment where Fabia’s voice pushed aside the chaotic scramble of nerves that was taking over Riz. He believed in Fabian’s confidence, and they’d gotten out of some pretty bad scrapes before, and as Fabian pulled his hand free of Riz’s to ball into a fist and Riz dropped his grip to his gun and he started to do the math, two fools against an ocean of fey, but then there was the clicking of nails on a rhinestone throne and the faerie’s voice rung out.

“Fabian Seacaster, you will not raise a hand against any one of us.” Its hands pulled, stretched at the air, warping the brilliant light that lanced through the hall, and Fabian froze in place, muscles straining against nothing. “Make your choice. My patience wears thin.” Its grin grew and its fingers tightened on the thread of light, and Fabian let out a small choking gasp.

Riz stepped in front of Fabian, watching the tension slacken from his muscles as the faerie snapped behind him, and scenarios were running through his head and none of them ended well. “Fabian, we have to get out of here, if this bullshit is our only way out-”

Fabian was shaking, shoulders tense and fists balled at his side. “Oh, yeah, let me just let them wipe away all my memories of you, bullshit, no one tells me what to do-”

“If it’s what we have to-”

“I don’t want to forget you, Riz!” Fabian’s words were a hiss, and in the crystalline light, the lipstick on his skin looked like blood.

Riz swallowed, and a sharp pain in his palm made him realize that he had dug the nails of his free hand into his skin. “I- Fabian, I don’t want you to forget me either, but if it’s the only way we can safely get out of here-”

Fabian, captain of the bloodrush team, fierce and charismatic and loud, wasn’t  _ desperate _ , but he was as close as frantic anger could get him. “There has to be another way, isn’t that your whole thing? We can always find another way-”

“The only way out of my halls is by my kindness.” The faerie’s voice rang out, cutting through Fabian and Riz’s whispered argument. The reedy joking quality of his voice was completely gone, all gemstone solid and weighty as the oldest trees that held up the roof of the room they were dwarfed in. “You may take this offer, or you may stay here.”

Fabian looked at Riz, and Riz looked at Fabian, heart in his throat, white knuckled grip. “It’s up to you, but-”

“Not exactly a fucking choice, is it.”

Fabian threw a glare at the faerie, wild as the sea and twice as vicious. “Take my memories of him and let us go.”

With that, he slipped a hand onto Riz’s cheek, pressed into his space and crushed a kiss to his lips, desperate and holding on as tightly as he could.

Riz closed his eyes, tense and shaking, and as he kissed Fabian back, he swore that he would figure out a way to fix this. He had to.

In those desperate moments, holding tight for as long as he could, the faerie’s voice echoed in his head.

_ Just remember,  _ Riz,  _ before you come waging war, that we have young Mr. Seacaster’s name. _

Riz forced the voice away, staying in that final moment for as long as he could before it had to end, but all too soon the pressure left his lips and the hand dropped from his cheek, and his eyes fluttered open to see a puzzled Fabian looking at him.

“Ah...who are you?”

* * *

Riz found himself drifting to a corner of Fig’s living room, not necessarily trying to stealth but not caring much if he wasn’t seen.

Fabian was there in all his glory, fitting right back in with the rest of the party, laughing and dazzling and painting quite the picture of his capture, and his time in the faerie halls, and his escape.

It wasn’t a picture that Riz had any part in.

Every so often Fabian would glance over at him, the look clearly asking why, exactly, this strange goblin was hanging around. The awkward smiles that Riz summoned didn’t seem to be winning him any points in Fabian’s favor.

Riz couldn’t say he was fine with it, because he clearly fucking wasn’t, hollow and hurting and quiet, but that faerie’s voice kept echoing in his head.

_ We still have young Mr. Seacaster’s name _ .

He had to fix things – he had to, selfish as his reasons may have been – but the threat of the fey taking Fabian back, or controlling him, or doing anything that they could imagine without Riz being able to stop them, made him want to curl up into a ball and spend the rest of time on Gilear’s yogurt-stained couch.

Not really, because Riz was a great detective who didn’t get brought down by things like the guy he finally admitted that he liked kissing him before promptly losing all his memories – and he was also pretty sure that he would take poison damage if he sat on that couch for too long – but.

But, sitting there, watching Fabian and his fucking smile, Fabian and his subtle love for his friends, Fabian and his suspicion anytime he remembered Riz existed, that would make anybody hurt.

The rest of the Bad Kids had accepted Riz’s sharp shake of his head when he had walked into the apartment a stranger, and even Gorgug’s loud puzzlement was quelled by Riz shrugging and mumbling something about sacrifices while Fabian stepped forward and into the spotlight. Riz had also spotted an elbow from Fig making its way into Gorgug’s side, but the relief that he felt was overcome by the questioning look that she sent him.

He knew that he was going to have to talk about this, that he was going to have to tell everyone what had happened – an abridged version, because the feeling of Fabian’s hands and lips was something that he was going to keep for himself – but he planned on putting that off until later.

Let them hear Fabian’s side of the story, as full of holes as it was, because Fabian deserved an audience, and he deserved to be around his friends.

Riz didn’t think about how the fact he wasn’t in that group anymore made him feel.

“And there I was, running down the hallway after having defeated three faerie guards, and I cleverly heard footsteps coming from before me and hid…” Fabian continued his story and Riz kept watching even as he told himself to look away, listening to the tales of escaping through halls – alone – and avoiding detection – alone. Adaine pulled herself from the performance to sit next to Riz, perching on the edge of the couch.

“What actually happened?” She was quiet, giving him space as she held herself upright, but the question was piercing in a way that Riz couldn’t get away from, no matter how much he wanted to just lock his problems up and never let them see the light of day.

His voice was flat when he spoke a few moments after, eyes locked on where he was wrapping and re-wrapping the chain of his friendship necklace around and around his knuckles. “He doesn’t remember me.”

“Yeah, I kind of got that the third time he insisted he didn’t know any balls other than the Bloodrush ball.” Adaine smoothed her hands across her jeans, the movement catching in Riz’s peripheral vision. “What really happened?”

“I found him, we ran, we hid, and then we ran right into their throne room, and the only way out was for Fabian to give up all his memories of me.” Riz paused, laughed, a faint bitter sound that was overshadowed by a brilliant  _ a-Ha! _ From Fabian across the room. “They had his true name, Adaine, we couldn’t- what were we supposed to do?”

Adaine was quiet, but before she could open her mouth Riz twisted the chain tighter against his fingers and continued. “The door from behind us disappeared, and there were so many of them, just  _ watching _ , and if we had stayed there you all would have just come and gotten stuck as well, and I keep thinking it through, trying to figure out what I could have done, but it’s not like there was a fucking choice-”

“Do you want to hold Boggy?” Adaine cut him off before his spiral could get tighter like the necklace cutting off his circulation and Riz finally looked up, taking in her unsure smile and the spherical frog in her hands.

“Do I- yeah, sure. Why not.” Riz unwound the chain from his fingers, idly noting the patterns imprinted on his skin, and tucked it away into a bloodstained vest pocket. Boggy hopped into his hands, practically dwarfing them, and he squeezed the frog as he worked through the words in his mouth. “It’s- I should have been able to figure something out.”

“Well, I can see the future, and there’s not even a way for me to have all the answers,” Adaine said, tapping her fingers on her knees. “Even if you’re prepared, there’s only so much you can do.”

Riz nodded, trying to believe those words but he knew that he should have been more prepared. If he had stayed professional and aware of the world around him and  _ hadn’t _ made out with Fabian in an alcove, maybe they would have been fine. Maybe they wouldn’t have run right into the throne room, and Fabian wouldn’t glance over Riz even when they were talking to each other. Sitting there, bloodstains on his clothes and adrenaline long worn off, Riz was unable to get away from the feeling that someone had taken a melon baller to his chest and left him hollow.

_ Inhale, squeeze the frog, exhale, relax your fingers _ .

Riz had gotten very good at playing like he was okay, like he had gotten more than an hour of sleep, like it didn’t feel like he was being taken apart by the universe, piece by piece. “Yeah. I guess so.”

Adaine thought, gave him a smile that was probably meant to be consoling but landed more in the realm of uncertainty. “Besides, you’re the best private eye that I know, and the rest of us are determined and loyal and don’t really have a concept of stopping? If anyone can fix this, it’s us.”

“I hope so.” Riz tried at a smile as he handed Boggy back and stood up, shuddering at how the couch almost seemed to suck him back in. “I should go, though. I haven’t slept in…” He paused, but the answer eluded him, and  _ that _ was never a good sign. “I don’t know how long, so.” He gave her a wave, ignored the analyzing look she sent him, and headed for the door.

“Aw, Riz, are you leaving already?” Kristen called out, stopping him just before he could make a clean escape, because of course she was just that perceptive.

Riz shrugged. “Yeah, it’s, uh- it is past my curfew, so I should head home.”

There was a chorus of goodbyes and a few meaningful looks that Riz did  _ not _ decipher, and he was almost home free before Fabian’s voice made him freeze mid-step. “Goodnight, ah, Riz, was it?”

“Yep!” Riz shut the door behind him, bracing himself against the wood.

“He has a curfew? Where did you  _ find _ this kid?” Fabian’s voice was muffled by the door, but Strongtower Luxury Apartments weren’t exactly known for their thick walls and the words came through pretty clearly.

Riz heard the others speaking up, Gorgug’s low rumble and Fig’s sharp voice reaching him even as he started off down the hall.

He had spent most of freshman and sophomore year wishing that Fabian would actually say his name, because even though  _ the Ball _ was their thing, even though it was a nickname shared by friends instead of peers or enemies, it still held him at a distance.

As  _ Riz, was it? _ replayed in his head, echoing again and again with every footstep, he would have given anything for Fabian to have called him the Ball.

Try as he might, Riz didn’t get much sleep that night.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to leave a comment or kudos, or come talk to me on tumblr at [the-ipre](https://the-ipre.tumblr.com)!


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